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Two Sure-Thing Prospects, Still Unsure

The minor league pitchers Manny Banuelos, left, and Dellin Betances at Yankees camp Sunday in Tampa.Credit
Edward Linsmier for The New York Times

TAMPA, Fla. — Manny Banuelos can remember when he was part of baseball’s most exciting set of pitching prospects. Coming up through the Yankees’ minor league system, the three players — Banuelos, Dellin Betances and Andrew Brackman — even had their own nickname.

Four years ago, they represented the future of the Yankees’ rotation, young arms with enormous potential. Now, the Killer B’s stand for something else entirely: the pitfalls of drafting can’t-miss pitching prospects. Too often, they miss.

Two years after the Yankees named him their top rookie in camp, Banuelos is out for the season, recovering from Tommy John reconstruction surgery on his left elbow last October. Betances, a hard-throwing right-hander, is trying to reassemble his confidence after struggling with his fastball command. And Brackman, a first-round pick in 2007, signed a minor league deal with the Chicago White Sox in January, his career dangling by a thread.

“It’s an inexact science,” General Manager Brian Cashman said of scouting and developing young pitchers.

The team is still invested in Betances, 24, and Banuelos, 21, who are virtually inseparable. They live together in an apartment near the team’s training complex. They wear Nos. 67 and 68. Their names are listed next to each other on the team’s alphabetical, numerical and positional rosters.

And while both are young — the Yankees signed Banuelos out of Mexico in 2008, at age 16 — the stakes seem particularly high for Betances, who grew up in New York City and attended high school in Brooklyn. Cashman likened him to a chemistry experiment.

“He’s still in a petri dish, growing,” Cashman said, adding that he was optimistic that things would click for Betances at some point. “If not, he’s going to be another one of those guys that the game is littered with, which is: amazing talent, but couldn’t find a way to piece it together.”

Betances was still growing into his 6-foot-8 frame when he made his major league debut as a late-season call-up in 2011. Everything seemed to be falling into place. Betances recalled how special it felt to be part of the Yankees when Mariano Rivera broke baseball’s career saves record.

“I was just trying to soak it all in,” Betances said. “So many good things were happening.”

The good times were fleeting. Betances was standing on that rickety bridge between potential and production, and he slipped through the slats. In two appearances, Betances pitched two and two-thirds innings, giving up two runs, walking six and hitting a batter. He could not locate his fastball.

That was the start of a long, discouraging slide that extended into the 2012 season, which he started at Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre before being demoted to Class AA Trenton. He posted a combined 6-9 record with a 6.44 earned run average in 26 starts. He walked 99 batters and hit 12.

“Everything snowballed,” Betances said. “I started thinking too much, and I let that get to me.”

J. R. Murphy, a 21-year-old catching prospect in camp with the Yankees, spent time with Betances in Trenton. When Betances arrived, Murphy could sense that Betances was obsessing over his mistakes — a predictable reaction for a top prospect who was free-falling through the system.

“There were times when he’d struggle to get out of an inning, and it would linger for days,” Murphy said, adding that he saw gradual improvement. “Toward the end of the year, if he struggled, we’d talk about it between innings and he’d fix the problem that day, as opposed to that week.”

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Betances will start this season in Class AAA, a litmus test of no small significance after he took what Cashman described as “a radical step back” last season. Larry Rothschild, the Yankees’ pitching coach, said Betances shortened his stride over the winter with the goal of making his delivery more consistent. “Being that tall, sometimes it takes time,” Rothschild said.

The Yankees are willing to be patient with Betances because he has extraordinary physical tools. Cashman described him as a beast, in the most complimentary way possible. Even when Betances was terrifyingly wild last season, he was still capable of throwing his fastball 97 miles per hour.

Banuelos made six starts for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre last season before his elbow began to give him problems. It was an alarming experience.

“Man, I was so sad,” he said. “Nobody wants to get surgery. And the bad thing is, I knew I would miss a year, and that’s a long time.”

Banuelos has a lot of free time on his hands. He throws three days a week, and the work is not particularly demanding, at least not by the usual standards. On Friday, for example, he tossed a baseball 50 times from 60 feet. This is what rehabilitation looks like.

“Every time I throw, it feels better,” said Banuelos, who will remain in Tampa for the rest of the year with an eye on pitching in 2014.

At camp, Banuelos has a locker and a spot on the 40-man roster, which the Yankees were required to give him in order to protect him from being selected by another team in the Rule 5 draft. Banuelos said he wondered whether he really belonged in the clubhouse.

“It feels bad because everybody’s competing and pitching, and I can’t do any of that,” he said.

Banuelos occupies himself by helping Betances. Whenever his friend pitches, Banuelos watches, which is pretty much all he can do.

“We talk about what he did wrong, what he did right,” said Banuelos, who has come to understand the hazards of their shared profession. “I want to see him make it this year.”

A version of this article appears in print on February 25, 2013, on Page D2 of the New York edition with the headline: Two Sure-Thing Prospects, Still Unsure. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe